


Contrition

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: About a Year After TLD, Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, But the Events of TST and TLD Happened, Communication, Dom Sherlock Holmes, Don't copy to another site, Edging, Eventually resolved, First Kiss, Forgiveness, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Head Injury, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Light Masochism, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, No Sadism, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Punishment, Rimming, Rosie doesn't exist, Sexual Tension, Soft Dom Sherlock, Spanking, Sub John Watson, TFP never happened, Tenderness, not of a main character, post-s4, sexual negotiation, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: “You’ve been tense ever since we got back, itching for a fight, all your usual tells, but why…?”The truth strikes like lightening.  “Oh…  Oh!“You’re not angry at me.  Not this time.  Well—maybe a little.  But mostly, mostly you’re angry at yourself.  Why?  For falling behind?  For not being there in time.  For not taking Wilkes down fast enough?”  Sherlock waves a dismissive hand.  “It doesn’t really matter.”He lifts a finger to his swollen cheek and cut eyebrow.  “You blame yourself for this.  And you offered to fix it.  But I wouldn’t let you, and…  But that’s not what you really want, anyway, is it?”John looks stunned, a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming lorry, frozen, waiting for the lethal strike.“You don’t want me to let you help.  At least not right away.  No.  What you want, what you really want is—punishment.”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 181
Kudos: 421





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been awhile since I wrote anything, but here I am, because this idea popped into my head the other night and would not let go.
> 
> If you know my brand, you know this story is going to be soft, and a lot of psychological and sexual exploration and healing, and well--no hardcore BDSM, so if that's your cup of tea, and what you're hoping for, you're probably going to be at least somewhat disappointed. 
> 
> Still, glad to be hear sharing with you all again. Enjoy!

If Sherlock Holmes is anything, he is an observer.

John is restless. 

Has been for months. 

Has been ever since he moved back in to the upstairs bedroom at 221b Baker Street.

At first Sherlock had seen it as somewhat natural. A great deal had happened. A great deal had been lost. Things had changed. They had changed. It would take time, and space, and care for things to settle, to slot back into their rightful place. They are still trying to find a new normal. For John to not seem like himself is to be expected, and yet… They’re going on nine months now…

It’s a mystery, and one Sherlock is determined to solve.

There had been a case today. There had been a chase down damp alleys, and there had been the unexpected ambush, Sherlock thrown to the pavement (he has a bruise blossoming along one cheekbone and over his eyebrow, even now). There had been a scuffle then, John launching himself at the man, Sherlock recovering quickly, joining in. Together they had brought him down, and had him restrained and handed over to the Met in no time. Neither of them was hurt very badly, but John has been strange since. Wound tight. 

Itching for a fight, maybe?

Something has to give.

Sherlock decides to test the waters.

“Bored.”

There is a deep sigh from the kitchen. “We just got in from a case not a half hour ago. How, on earth, can you possibly be bored?”

“Bored.”

John appears at the entrance to the kitchen, a tea towel slung over one shoulder, and glowers down at Sherlock spread out on the sofa, louche and lazy, shirt half unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, shoes kicked off, and a hint of bare ankle peeking out between sock and bunched up trouser leg.

“I’m not cooking you dinner.”

Sherlock sighs, heavy and hard done by, lets his eyes slide shut, listens to John sniff, and shuffle from one foot to the other in the doorway. 

“You should let me look at that, you know. It’s bruising already.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock throws an arm over his head, and sighs again, for good measure.

“Suit yourself.” And then John is back in the kitchen, banging pots and pans about, much more loudly than before.

Sherlock cracks open one eye, and then peels himself from the sofa, and goes to join him. He leans against the wall at the entrance to the room, and watches John scrub at a pot with far more vigour than is likely needed. “You been burning things in these again?”

Sherlock just shrugs, and there is no way that John could have registered the non-verbal response, but he sighs anyway. “Maybe I should start making you clean them, mm?”

The hum at the end of the sentence is tight. John is going to break. Sherlock can feel it in the air. The crackle of electricity before a summer storm. “Mm. Perhaps you should.”

John freezes, glances over his shoulder at Sherlock, who simply arches a brow in response. After a beat, he tightens his grip around the pot handle and goes back to scrubbing in disgruntled silence. 

Sherlock frowns.

“But you won’t.” Sherlock pushes.

“What?” There. That’s hit its mark. 

“You won’t. You like doing these little things for me. You just also happen to like complaining about it.”

John sets the pot slowly back in the water. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You itching for a fight?” It’s calm. It’s lethal.

“No. But you are.”

John lets go, pulls the towel from his shoulder and dries his hands. “Nope. I’m not doing this with you.”

“Why? You want to.”

And that’s it, that’s the thing that breaks John wide open. It’s sudden, and glorious, all restraint gone, he strides forward, jams a finger into Sherlock’s chest, vein in his forehead pulsing, eyes wild. “No! No. You do not get to tell me how I feel. You do not KNOW ME, do you understand?!”

Sherlock stares down at John’s small, white, trembling finger pressed just below the scar his late wife’s bullet had left. “It was something about today,” Sherlock explains calmly. “The case. The ambush, maybe.”

John’s face goes from purple to blanched in a heartbeat. He doesn’t move.

“I went on ahead. You couldn’t keep up. You couldn’t prevent Wilkes from taking me down, and you…”

Something behind John’s eyes shifts from rage to fear, and for a moment Sherlock considers stopping, but they’ve been teasing the edges of this thing, whatever it is, ever since John moved back in, and they can’t keep going on this way. It’s a dangerous game they play with one another. It’s always been. That will likely never change, that toying the edges, walking the razor fine edge between healing and utter obliteration. Best to press on. 

John’s finger drops. He takes a step back. His head tilts to one side as though expecting a blow, but he doesn’t say ‘stop’. 

“You’ve been tense ever since we got back, itching for a fight, all your usual tells, but why…?”

The truth strikes like lightning. “Oh… Oh!

“You’re not angry at me. Not this time. Well—maybe a little. But mostly, mostly you’re angry at yourself. Why? For falling behind? For not being there in time. For not taking Wilkes down fast enough?” Sherlock waves a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t really matter.” 

He lifts a finger to his swollen cheek and cut eyebrow. “You blame yourself for this. And you offered to fix it. But I wouldn’t let you, and… But that’s not what you really want, anyway, is it?”

John looks stunned, a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming lorry, frozen, waiting for the lethal strike.

“You don’t want me to let you help. At least not right away. No. What you want, what you really want is—punishment.”

It’s quiet in the flat. Mrs. Hudson is out. The evening rush of traffic has yet to pick up. There is only the soft ticking of the clock on the wall, and John’s ragged breathing. John’s nostrils flare. He presses his lips together in a straight, grim line.

“And not just for what happened today,” Sherlock finishes, a little more gently. 

* * *

“Has he still not come down then?” 

Mrs. Hudson sweeps into the flat with bags of shopping in her hands, opens the fridge and starts to bin things with small, barely disguised mutters of horror. 

“Don’t bin the eyeballs. They’re an experiment.” Sherlock orders from the sofa.

“They’ve gone quite off, I’m afraid.”

“They’re an experiment!”

Sherlock hears her tut, and then start to put away the food she’s brought.

“You didn’t answer my question about John.”

Sherlock cranes his neck to stare up into the dark shadows of the landing to the third floor. “He’ll come down when he’s ready, I imagine.”

Mrs. Hudson appears at his side, and stares down at him with a hand on her hip. “What did you do?”

Sherlock pouts a little at that. “Nothing.”

She looks as though she doesn’t believe a word of it. Wise woman.

Sherlock sighs. “I may have said some things—true things. Things I’m not sure he wanted to hear.”

She jerks her head in a swift nod of acknowledgement. ‘ _Of course you did,’_ he can almost hear her thinking.

“It was for the best,” he says in his defence. “Like tearing off a plaster.”

“Yes, well. Be careful with him, Sherlock. You know how things were last year, and I don’t want to ever have to see either of you in that sort of state again, do you hear. Be careful with each other, for goodness sake.”

Sherlock hums in acknowledgement, and shuts his eyes, a hint that she is being dismissed, and one he hopes she takes. 

She does. She always does.

Sherlock sits up, gazes up the stairs. John has been down twice to use the bathroom, on one of those occasions he had grabbed a glass of water and a sandwich, but he hadn’t acknowledged Sherlock at all. It’s been almost 24 hours.

Sherlock goes into the kitchen, pours a glass of water and grabs one of the apples Mrs. Hudson brought from the bowl on the table. He takes a deep breath. He goes upstairs.

There is silence behind John’s door.

Sherlock taps twice with one knuckle. There’s no response.

He tries again.

Nothing.

“I’m coming in.”

John is sitting in the middle of his bed, photos spread out in front of him. Photos from his army days. Dusty, tanned young men in uniform, stretches of desert, what looks like the inside of an army hospital, nurses, doctors, a photo of a man Sherlock recognises as James Sholto, John’s old commanding officer.

Sherlock pushes the glass of water under his nose. “Drink this.”

John does, without question, but beyond the simple act of obedience he doesn’t acknowledge Sherlock at all.

Sherlock reaches for the glass, once John drains it, and John hands it to him, takes the apple when offered, eats it when ordered.

Sherlock sits down on the edge of the bed.

John is sitting cross-legged, his hands are folded in his lap.

Sherlock reaches out and picks up the photo nearest to John’s right knee: John with his arm around a young boy, a local probably. He sets it back down. “John, I—I said a lot of things yesterday, and…”

“What if I told you, you were right?”

It’s an unexpected confession. Sherlock wonders how much courage it’s taken.

“Then I would say that if that’s what you want, then you want forgiveness, too. You already have it.”

John huffs softly, and shakes his head. “Just like that.”

“Yes. Just like that. But if it takes something more for you to be able to accept that, then—that could be arranged.”

John shifts a little, sucks in a sharp breath, settles again. “What would that look like?”

“What would you like it to look like?” It’s low and quiet. There’s really no need. They’re all the way at the top of the house. There’s no one to hear. But the topic seems to engender a kind of reverence and care. 

John looks away, stares back down at the patchwork of photographs spread over the coverlet. “Don’t.” When he looks back up, he looks desperate. “I can’t. So, tell me. Just tell me how it would be.”

Sherlock can give this to John, he thinks, after everything, after all they’ve been through, all Sherlock has put John through, all the things that John regrets, all the things that John hates himself for, most of them, at least the things the last decade or so, a direct result of Sherlock’s presence in his life. This isn’t masochism on Sherlock’s part. This is simple fact.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” 

No hesitation.

It takes Sherlock’s breath away. He’d expected John to have to really think, to truly consider. After everything that had happened since Moriarty, he wasn’t sure if John would or could ever fully trust him again. Fair enough. More than fair enough. So this—this feels like a gift. But still…

“John…”

“No. I know what you’re thinking. I do. But in the beginning, I did. I would have trusted you with my life. Don’t know why. Still don’t know why. But, I think I—I want to start over. I want things to go back to the way they were back then, when everything was fresh, and you and I were…”

“A lot has happened since then,” Sherlock reminds him. “And if you want this. If we do this. Things won’t be like they were.”

This seems enough to sober John for a moment. He stares down at the coverlet, picks up a photo of the desert, beige, unending. “Tell me how it will be.”

Sherlock inhales, holds it for a moment, and lets it out, measured. “You’ll have to promise me that you will tell me if I ever ask you to do something you don’t want to do. I insist.”

John nods once.

“And nothing sexual.”

John’s head snaps up.

It was a stupid, presumptuous thing to even bring up. Sherlock sees that instantly. John has never so much as suggested that he might be interested in such a thing, and for Sherlock to even hint that he might have been…

“Is that—acceptable?” 

John’s mouth opens, closes again. He nods.

“Good. And we will be plain with one another. None of—whatever that is we usually do.”

John’s brow knits.

“I mean, you will speak plainly. I will speak plainly. Orders will be clear. Obeyed without question. No games.”

“And that’s it?”

Sherlock’s heart flips and then sinks. “Sorry?”

“You tell me what to do. I do it. That’s it? That’s my punishment?”

John sounds genuinely disappointed. It throws Sherlock for a moment, but only for a moment.

“You told me to tell you how it would be. I’m telling you. Are you questioning my judgement.”

Something subtle shifts behind John’s eyes. He sits a little straighter. “No.”

“Good. Now come downstairs and make supper. It’s late and you’ve been up here far too long.”

John’s brows disappear into his fringe, his eyes following Sherlock as he gets to his feet and heads for the door. 

Sherlock heads down the stairs. “Now, John.”

He hears a hurried shuffling and then John’s footsteps fall in behind his. And there is a kind of comfort in it. It is a little like old times, he thinks, those first heady, half-mad days, when John would have followed him straight into the fires of Hell if he’d so much as hinted he desired it. It feels a little like the pieces falling back into place, all the trials, and pains, and missteps of the last decade slowly starting to set themselves to rights.

It will never be what it was, but perhaps it could be close. Perhaps it could be this—whatever this is, and Sherlock thinks that might just be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Their new (or rather, very old) arrangement goes well.

They begin to take more cases. Sherlock issues orders and John obeys. John always obeys. Sometimes there’s a grumble or a sigh, but all it takes is a level stare or arched brow from Sherlock, and John acquiesces. 

It’s somewhat gratifying. Sherlock had forgotten. It makes him feel settled, and safe in ways that had completely escaped him over the intervening years. He has been transported back to their first heady days as partners. The thrill, the delicious tension, the sense of purpose, drive, rightness. Yes, they needed this, he thinks. It’s good. They needed to remember who they were so they could find their footing again, and understand who they are becoming.

John seems calmer, too. He sleeps better, eats more. He takes up running, much to Sherlock bemusement. But whenever he gets back to the flat, flushed, sweaty and gasping, he seems lit up, exuberant, even, and Sherlock has to admit it’s good to see him regaining some of his colour, and putting on a little weight and muscle again.

They go on like this for some time. John seems satisfied with the arrangement, and Sherlock thinks that perhaps his itch for punishment has abated somewhat now that he’s finding ways to feel useful and to please. He’s yet to give Sherlock any excuse.

Until the night John gets the phone call.

His phone had been ringing all day. His sister. They’d been on a case—a good one! John had eventually just turned his phone off. It isn’t until late that night, over a plate of fried rice and orange chicken at the late night Chinese place on Marylebone Road, that he finally flicks it back on. 

Sherlock watches his brow knit, his lips go pale. He swipes through to his voicemail. Listens to the distraught voice of a woman on the other end. Not his sister from the sounds of it, though the calls had come from her number.

John’s phone clatters onto the table, and he reaches behind himself for his coat, nearly toppling his chair over as he stands. “I have to go.”

“Alright. What’s happened?” 

Sherlock motions to the waitress for the bill.

“I have to go, NOW!”

“Go hail a cab. I’ll pay.”

John is still struggling when Sherlock joins him at the kerb. Sherlock lifts a hand at an approaching cab with its light off, and there must be something about his manner that makes it stop. “We need to go to the hospital. It’s an emergency. We’ll pay double,” Sherlock explains.

“Right. Which hospital?” 

Sherlock looks to John. 

“Umm, Whittington.”

“On Magdala Avenue, I believe,” Sherlock adds.

They pull away from the kerb and into the night. It’s started to rain. John is pale and still.

“What’s happened?”

John just shakes his head. “Shouldn’t have turned my phone off. She’s been bad again lately.”

“What’s happened?”

“She went out after work. Hen night, or something. Stepped off the kerb in front of a car.”

“Did whoever called indicate her condition?”

“No.”

“Alright. We’ll see when we get there.”

She’s in surgery when they arrive. A doctor comes out to speak to John a few hours later, a man who seems almost too young to be a surgeon, or perhaps, Sherlock thinks, it’s just he and John who have started to look old in comparison. There are internal injuries that the surgery seems to have taken care of. More worrying, there is the potential of head injury. They’ve induced coma. It’s wait and see. 

John takes all this news with the sort of professional calm Sherlock has always admired in him. He’s a good person to have around in an emergency. Years of practice, Sherlock supposes. But this is his sister, and there are small cracks in the armour for anyone with eyes to see.

John wants to stay, to at least wait until she’s moved from Recovery to Intensive Care so he can satisfy himself that everything is being done the way it should be. And so they do stay, and they wait, and it’s near six in the morning when they are finally allowed in to see her. She’s very pale, and very still, tubes everywhere, the quiet, steady beeping of her heart monitor a comfort in the tense quiet of the ward.

Sherlock has never liked intensive care. The breathless waiting to see if someone lives or dies.

John seems resigned. He checks her charts. He chats with the nurse assigned to her. He sits beside his sister’s bed, and stares down at her, dry-eyed. He doesn’t touch. After a half hour he gets to his feet.

“Let’s go home.”

When they get back to the flat, John goes up to his room without a word. Sherlock considers going after him, but it doesn’t feel right. Space. John needs space in times like this. They can talk about it later.

Miraculously, Sherlock sleeps. When he wakes, the light is dim and purple in the room. He gets up, goes out to the lounge, and finds John in his chair, reading the paper.

“Any news?” Sherlock’s voice is still rough with sleep. 

John doesn’t even look up from his paper. “No.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Not really?”

“Are you planning on going back to the hospital.”

“Not really a point until she wakes up, now is there.”

Sherlock frowns. John sounds angry. Voice tight. Answers clipped.

“You need sleep.”

“Nope.”

“John.”

But John just ignores him. This is a first since they began their little arrangement.

“John,” he tries again, and when he gets no response. “It’s not a suggestion. Sleep.”

John calmly flips a page in the paper he’s reading.

Sherlock moves into the room, settles into his chair, and tents his fingers beneath his chin, observing John, who is continuing to make quite a show of ignoring him. He takes in every detail, the swollen, almost bruised bags beneath his eyes, the slight muss to his hair, the stillness, so much stillness, except for his rate of breathing which is quicker and more shallow than normal.

Anticipation.

John wants him to act, to do something.

“What do you need?”

He sees John’s shoulders slump slightly. Exhaustion? No. Disappointment.

“Nothing.”

“You need sleep.”

John says nothing.

“I won’t repeat myself.”

John stirs, shifts a little in his seat. Sherlock watches his cheeks pink, his mouth part, his... Oh. His nipples peak beneath the thin cotton of the t-shirt he’s wearing.

Sherlock gets to his feet. “To bed. Now.”

John folds the paper and sets it in his lap. He stares up at Sherlock. Defiance. The look he levels on him is just a little cocky, daring Sherlock, to follow through, he supposes, to do SOMETHING.

“Now!” Sherlock barks.

John is on his feet in an instant, and from the look on his face, it seems he is just as surprised as Sherlock by how quickly the change in tone worked.

“Upstairs.” Sherlock points to the landing and John goes. 

Almost.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he stops.

“John.”

He doesn’t move.

He wants to push the matter, then. 

He wants to be forced.

And now Sherlock is faced with a decision. A decision, if he’s perfectly honest with himself, that he has been desperately trying to avoid since the moment he realised John’s needs. Because, the truth is, he wants this as much as John seems to, wants it and fears it. It terrifies him how easy it would be, right now, to stride across the room, to push John up against the wall of the landing, half hidden in the shadows, and… And what?

What?!

Sherlock steels himself. He moves. He stops just in front of John, whose shoulders square, and chin lifts in defiance. There’s no point in issuing more orders, John has made a decision. Sherlock reaches down, and takes both of John’s wrists in his hands.

The touch travels through John’s body like a jolt of electricity. He twitches, reels back, and then sways a little in Sherlock’s direction before finding his footing again. Sherlock says nothing, only stares, waits. When John doesn’t move he tightens his grip. John’s mouth dissolves from a tight line, into something lax and wanting.

Sherlock hates himself for a moment, hates that he never realised, never saw. Something this important, and he had missed it entirely. Stupid! Unforgivable. John is starving. Sherlock wonders for how long.

“You could have asked.”

John stands a little taller.

Sherlock tightens his grip, steps into John’s space, until John has his back against the wall.

“You should have said.”

John twists his wrist a little in Sherlock’s grip. He’s not really trying to pull away, but he’s making a point. 

_ I’m asking now. _

Sherlock steps closer, pins John’s hands against the wall, slides them up over his head, and presses their bodies together. 

John stops breathing. For a brief, pregnant moment neither of them say, or do anything.

Sherlock watches, fascinated, as John’s eyes glaze, lids drop and he goes lax beneath the press of Sherlock’s body.

John’s need is unmistakable, hard and straining against Sherlock’s thigh.

Sherlock’s mouth feels dry.

John would let him do anything, he suddenly realises. Here, in this moment, with Sherlock pinning him against the wall, John is completely, and wilfully at his mercy. Sherlock’s body reacts to the realisation with a surge of desire so strong it makes his head go light for a moment, makes his grip on John’s wrists tighten involuntarily. John gasps. Sherlock moans, suddenly hard and aching.

Sherlock fights desperately to keep his wits about him. There are decisions to be made. Important decisions. Now is not the time to give in to…

John’s hips roll away from the wall, his body dragging against Sherlock’s thigh, his eyes sliding shut, and head falling back against the wall with a soft thud. He’s soft, and pliable, and Sherlock can’t think, can’t think at all. All there is, is want.

He lets go of John’s wrists, and John whimpers, actually whimpers. Sherlock knows he has to slow things down. They’ve not talked about this, it wasn’t the agreement, not at all.

Reaching down he takes John by the hips and pushes him firm, back against the wall. John makes a small grunt of protest, and his cock throbs against the front of his trousers. There’s a wet spot forming. Sherlock’s mouth waters.

“Go upstairs. Get undressed… And sleep.”

John’s eyes slide open. They’re confused, and then full, and then angry. And Sherlock almost breaks, almost, but this is too important.

“This wasn’t part of the arrangement. It…” Sherlock swallows down the hunger, the hope. “It can be, but not tonight, not like this. Sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

He steps back, and even in the dimness of the landing he can see John’s hurt, the raw vulnerability, the betrayal. “If we keep on like this, something will happen,” Sherlock murmurs into the quiet.

“Maybe I want it to.” It’s barely a whisper.

“Yes. I know. But not like this.”

A tear spills over and catches on the edge of John’s lashes, just hangs there, glistening and teetering on the brink. John’s jaw is tight, his fists balled up, white knuckled and trembling.

“I want it, too.” Sherlock confesses, and John sucks in a sharp breath, almost a sob, lets go. 

“Look at me.” John swallows dryly, and Sherlock glances downward, guiding John’s gaze. “Look.”

John’s eyes drop, and then snap back up to his face. “I want it, too,” Sherlock repeats just in case the physical evidence wasn’t proof enough. “But I don’t want to make any mistakes this time.”

John rubs angrily at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Punishment. You want it. I know. And it can be a part of this, if you like, but I don’t ever want this…” Sherlock motions between them. “This thing, to  _ be _ punishment, do you understand?”

John meets his gaze, but says nothing.

“You’re angry at yourself, right now. About your sister. About not answering the phone. About not being there. And that’s why I don’t want to do this now.”

John slumps back against the wall. He looks small and defeated, and Sherlock aches.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

John’s head snaps up, eyes red-rimmed and furious. “Don’t.”

“John.”

“No! Don’t. You don’t—you don’t get to do this, to just—dole out… Just who the fuck do you think you are?!”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything. He’s taken a misstep somewhere. Somewhere important.

“I told you what I need, and you said you understood, but you—you just won’t…!”

And when Sherlock says nothing in return John pushes away from the wall, and shoves him—hard. It doesn’t catch him unawares, but he still has to take a step back. He opens his mouth, but John is there again before he can say a word, fists against his chest, over and over, pushing him back toward the kitchen, and Sherlock knows it has to stop.

“Enough!” He grabs one of John’s hands just before it makes contact with his chest, and pushes back.

John struggles a little, but Sherlock holds fast, and then catches his other fist when John tries to bring it back into play.

“ENOUGH!”

John pulls back hard, rips his hands from Sherlock’s grip. He’s strong. Stronger than he looks. He always has been. “THEN PUNISH ME!!”

Sherlock blinks.

John looks stunned, like he’s just plunged back into his body and is still trying to figure out what just came out of his own mouth. “Please…” It’s barely a whisper. “Don’t make me ask again. Just…”

Things have gone on long enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's Note:** Please note the added tag of #Spanking, which I somehow forgot in the beginning. Also, this chapter contains references to past relationships for both John and Sherlock. James Sholto and Mary for John, and Victor Trevor for Sherlock. Obviously, none of these characters appear on screen, and never will (which is why they weren't listed in the character tags), but I have had people request I tag for Victor Trevor mentions before, so consider this your warning.

Sherlock steps forward, takes John’s hand, pulls him into the lounge. John follows silently. Sherlock can feel the relief in the firm grip of his hand, in the sudden quiet, the sudden calm.

When they reach the desk by the window, Sherlock lets go, pulls out a chair. “Sit,” he orders. 

John does, instantly and without question.

“You need to pick a word.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

Sherlock removes his watch, rolls up his sleeves. He moves about the flat, pulling the curtains, locking the doors to the landing. Finally, he pulls out a chair of his own, sets it across from John, and sits. 

“Your word?”

“Red. Yellow to slow down. I don’t use Green. You’ll get the point.”

“You’ve done this before.” It’s not a question.

John nods. “Few times. Yeah.”

“And was it—what you needed?”

John just shrugs, and Sherlock wonders what it means.

“That isn’t an answer.”

John frowns. “It was fine. Yeah.”

“Fine?”

“Yeah. Fine.” John’s tone is tight, irritated. His arousal is flagging.

_ Good. _

“What about you then?” John sounds defiant again. “You done this before?”

“No.”

John looks stunned.

“Not directly. Not exactly this particular arrangement. But I’m not without knowledge on the subject. Enough to be getting on with, anyway. And as you’ve said, you trust me, and are willing to communicate, which are the key considerations in these matters, I believe. Unless this information changes that?”

John just shakes his head.

“Good. Now stand up and assume the position, and let’s get on with it, if you please.”

“Can I get something first?”

“Alright.”

John jerks his head, once, and then turns and disappears upstairs. Sherlock listens to the distant sound of something scraping across the floor, as John pulls something heavy out from under his bed, opens it, roots around a little. 

When he returns he is holding a paddle. It’s plain wood, polished smooth, well cared for. He looks down at it, and then holds it out to Sherlock.

“This is what I like.”

Sherlock takes it, reverently; weighs it in his hand, strokes a finger down the length of its polished surface.

He looks back up at John. “And how do you like it.”

John’s shoulders square, his legs spread, and he settles into something like parade rest. “Make it hurt. I need to know you mean it.”

“Mean what?”

“Mean to punish me.”

“And do you know what I’m punishing you for?” Because Sherlock has serious doubts.

John looks confused by the question.

Sherlock sighs, and points toward the chair he’d drawn out previously. “Sit.”

John does, and Sherlock gets to his feet, puts his own chair back, and goes to stand over him.

“I won’t punish you for things that don’t warrant it. As long as you obey me, we’re fine. If you want this, need this, you can ask. I will oblige. But it will not be punishment for things that were not your fault.”

John looks angry.

“This.” Sherlock holds up the paddle. “This, tonight, is for insubordination. Outright disobedience when I ordered you to bed earlier. Is that understood?”

John’s chin lifts. “Yes, Sir.” 

The term of address is wholly unexpected. It sends a rush of something liquid-hot and thrilling through Sherlock’s veins.

John’s face flushes scarlet. 

“If calling me that helps you, then—I have no objections.”

John’s face goes redder still. “Not sure. Habit I guess. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” And Sherlock tries not to let the disappointment show. He nods toward the desk. “Now, if you will.”

John goes. He bends over, braces himself against the cool surface.

Sherlock pulls the chair out of the way, and paces around him. John has his cheek pressed to the wood, his eyes closed. He looks calm, but his arms are trembling.

Sherlock stops, looks—just looks. He stands and takes it all in, tries to read, to learn. John’s trembling increases, the longer he waits. It’s anticipation, of course, but there is something else there, too. He needs to be careful.

When he steps forward and lays a hand softly on John’s lower back, John jumps.

Sherlock strokes up the length of John’s spine, to the nape of his neck and then back down again.

“Just do it!” John snaps.

And Sherlock wonders at how it’s been before, with his other partners, how they had treated him, what they had done. He slides his hand back up to John’s nape, and leaves it there, squeezes gently. “Set your head straight. You’ll strain your neck this way.”

“I want it to hurt.”

“And it will, but you’re a doctor, John. You know this. Let’s not be foolish.”

John does as he asks.

He strokes the back of John’s head, relishing in the fact that it’s permitted, wanted. “Before, when you’ve done this, have you always been in this role.”

“Why are we talking?”

“Because I want to.”

John sniffs. “Yeah. It’s what I like.”

“And was it something casual, occasional, or—more long term?”

“First person just happened a couple of times. Probably shouldn’t have.”

“Why?”

“Listen, are you going to…?”

Sherlock curls his fingers, drags the blunt of his nails over John’s scalp in a tender warning.

John shivers and then sighs. “He could have gotten into a lot of trouble. We probably shouldn’t have, you know.”

“I see. And the other?”

“Long term. Well—longish. Committed relationship, for awhile. It was good, until it wasn’t. I was in a bad place. I needed it. They understood that.”

_ Ahh… _

“And trust?”

“What about it?!” It’s clear Sherlock has hit a nerve.

“Did you trust her?” Because he needs John to know that he knows.

John’s fingers tighten where they grip the side of the desk, white knuckled. “Yeah. Maybe shouldn’t have.”

“Is that going to be a problem between us?”

“Not unless you’re planning on murdering my best friend!” It’s the first time John has mentioned Mary shooting him since it happened. It’s spat out, tight and laced through with more barely disguised pain than Sherlock cares to dwell on. Not now, at least.

“No. I can promise you, I’ve no plans on that,” he replies gently.

“Then we’re good. Now, can we just…?”

“Yes.” Sherlock steps back and takes in John’s posture. He’s straightened his head now. He seems braced and ready. His trousers have pockets, but they’re thin cotton, not denim. The seams shouldn’t be a problem. He’s removed his belt at some point. Things should be fine.

Sherlock looks down at the paddle in his hands, and is surprised to see them trembling. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, and when he feels calm enough, swings back and administers the first blow. It’s not as hard as it could be. It’s a test, really. To ensure his aim is good, and to administer an adequate level of discomfort without crossing over into real pain.

John lets out a small exhalation. His fingers tighten over the edge of the desk and then loosen again.

“Harder.” He almost sounds bored.

Sherlock swings again. The impact is much stronger this time. He feels it in his wrist and forearm, sees it pass through John’s body, the force of it escaping John’s lips in a surprised grunt, followed by a sharp inhalation.

“Like that?”

John nods eagerly.

“Yes or no.”

“Yeah. Yeah, like that. Just like that.”

“How many?”

“I don’t fucking care, just—just do it until I can’t take any more.”

“We’ll start with ten.”

He delivers another precise blow, watches John surge forward. His eyes slide shut and his mouth drops open with a sigh. All good signs Sherlock thinks, and so he strikes again, and again, and again, soaking in John’s grunts and moans with a level of pleasure that hardly seems decent. On the final blow he tries a little more force, and is rewarded with a guttural groan, a quick inhalation, and a smile, an actual smile on John’s lips.

“More. God. Please more.” John’s sounds drunk, words slightly slurred, forehead pressed against the wood. He squirms, clearly grinding against the furniture in an attempt to tease out more pleasure.

Sherlock’s trousers feel tight.

He hadn’t anticipated this. 

No. 

Wait.

Obviously he had, or should have, after what had just happened on the landing, and yet he had dragged John in here, anyway. 

Just what had he thought would happen once they began? 

Stupid. STUPID!

“Please…” John sounds desperate.

“No. We stop.”

John lets out a small, broken sound that twists in Sherlock’s heart like a knife, and elicits an unexpected echo of pleasure further down.

God he wants this.

He’s not felt it like this in years, this deep, all-consuming, almost primal urge to bring another person to climax, to tease, and taste, and string along, merrily, for hours, until they are panting, and begging and desperate. It’s heady. He feels as drunk as John. And that is why they need to stop. He can’t bear for this to go wrong. Not like it did with… No. John is too important.

“Let it settle,” he orders quietly. “Let it settle, John. There will be other nights. You’ve had your punishment, and now you need to sleep.”

John is slumped and shivering over the top of the desk. “I hate you.” It’s barely a whisper, small, and thready, but it cuts deep, none-the-less. Sherlock knows he doesn’t mean it. It’s not John talking, not really. It’s the protestation of an addict. It’s the same way he’s felt when he needed a hit to numb the pain, make everything go away for awhile, and was denied. He hated John’s care and insistence then, too, or his brother’s, or Mrs. Hudson’s. This is no different.

“No, you don’t. Now come to bed. Come on.”

He peels John from the surface of the wood. John lets him, lets himself be led down the hall to Sherlock’s room, undressed down to his pants and taken to the bed.

His legs are trembling. Sherlock turns down the covers and nods toward the mattress. “In.”

John goes, and then Sherlock undresses too, climbs in on the other side, and slides close. “Come here.”

John slides backward until he’s close enough for Sherlock to wrap an arm around his waist and draw him in. John allows it, but still refuses to look at him.

“Roll over.”

“No.”

“John.”

“Angry with you.”

He sounds so different from his usual self. Younger somehow, petulant more than angry. A testy, rebellious boy, pushing his limits. Sherlock is clearly being tested. Has been all night, when it comes down to it.

“You’re not.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel.”

Sherlock huffs into John’s hair. “Alright. You’re angry with me. Why?”

John squirms a little in his arms, but he doesn’t try to pull away.

“Leave me alone.”

“You want me to leave?”

There’s a long stretch of silence, and then John’s small hand, slightly cold, slipping over the arm Sherlock has draped around his waist.

Sherlock holds him a little tighter. “Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Sorry.”

“I know.”

“Sherlock?”

“Mmm?”

“Are we okay?”

“Yes. Now sleep. Things will seem clearer in the morning.”

John’s fingers tighten around his forearm. “What am I gonna do if she…?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

He feels John shiver and let go. “Okay.”

* * *

Sherlock doesn’t sleep, but John does, and Sherlock takes the time to appreciate the weight of him, the warmth of him in his arms. There had been long stretches, years, where John was so distant from him, geographically, physically, emotionally, that he would have given his last breath for even one minute of what he has now. John back under his roof. John’s companionship, his care, his trust.

What they are embarking on won’t be easy. It’s fraught with dangers. Tonight has proved that. But if he’s very, very careful, they might just be alright, and this might just be something they get to keep. He hopes so. If he were a praying man, he would ask any and every power over heaven and earth to guard the borders of this new thing they are building. But as it is, there is only him, him and John. They’ll just have to do the best they can and hope that it’s enough.

John stirs a little, rolls onto his back with a hiss and a groan. Old injuries flaring up, no doubt. Nothing they did tonight, Sherlock thinks (hopes). He hadn’t struck him hard enough for all that. Isn’t sure he could if it really came down to it. Maybe. John is a doctor. He understands that sometimes pain is necessary for healing. Sherlock can endeavour to understand the same, to extend the same kindness and courtesy to John that John has to so many others—even with the risk.

Because he values John enough, cares for John enough. He would die for him. He has, and that had felt huge and important at the time. In the end he had learned it was really just hollow, mere posturing. It’s a relatively simple thing to die for someone. It’s much more difficult to live for them. But he has tried to do that, too, these last few years, and now maybe John is finally starting to be able to see that, to accept it for what it is: an olive branch, a declaration of intention, a confession.

He feels John wake even before he sees him open his eyes. He feels the realisation settle, John remembering where he is, remembering what had happened between them only a few hours before.

John rolls his spine a little. “You awake.”

“Mmm.”

“You okay?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. Back’s just a bit stiff.”

“I’m sorry. We’ll try a different position next time.”

“Don’t mind it, really.”

“But I do.”

John goes quiet. The window to Sherlock’s bedroom is cracked slightly, and the soft hum of late night traffic on the other side of the flat provides a soothing level of white noise. A siren wails somewhere out on Marylebone road, and John shifts a little.

“Listen, I… You were right. We probably should talk about this.”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you something?” John sounds nervous, and with all his shifting about since he woke, he’s somehow managed to slip out of Sherlock’s embrace. It feels lonely.

“Yes.”

“Back when we first discussed this, you said—no sex.”

“Yes.”

“But tonight, you—you wanted it—I thought.”

“Problem?”

“No. I just—I wondered, I guess. Why you said no, in the first place. What changed. If—if maybe you changed your mind again after—all that.”

“It’s not who we’ve ever been. It complicates things. I’ve had it go wrong before. And this…” Sherlock motions between them. “I would prefer it not to go wrong.”

“Right. Okay.”

They lie in the quiet listening to one another breathe.

“Gotta be honest. I didn’t really think you did that at all,” John confesses after awhile.

“Yes. Well, I do.”

“Right.”

“But you don’t want to do it with me?” He sounds small and horribly disappointed.

Sherlock sighs, lets his eyes slide shut in the dark. “I thought I made it clear earlier this evening, that I…”

“Yeah, and then you cut me off, before either of us even…” John stops short. “Thought maybe I’d misunderstood the whole business.”

There’s a nakedness and something that sounds almost like shame in the admission. Sherlock opens his eyes and glances over. John is staring at the ceiling, but he looks over when he notices Sherlock’s gaze. 

“I stopped because we hadn’t talked about it. Neither of us had agreed to anything of the kind. Given all that had happened in the last 24 hours, I didn’t think we should just forge ahead, without…”

“But if we talked about it, you would?”

“Possibly.”

John’s eyes search his, his tongue sliding over his bottom lip, before he turns his eyes back to the shadows playing over the ceiling. “You were with someone before? Like this?”

Sherlock smiles fondly. “No. Never like this.”

John looks back over at him, searching his eyes in the darkness before smiling back, pleased and almost disbelieving.

“But, there was a sexual relationship,” Sherlock clarifies. “Rather intense and all consuming. I was young. It was flattering, and intoxicating—the attention, the sex, and the drugs.”

John throws an arm over his head. “With James it was…” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. We were in a war zone. Everything is heightened, and things got pretty intense for awhile, and it just happened. It just happened, and then I could think again, function again—for awhile. I needed to. You can’t fall apart out there. It doesn’t help anyone, and people are relying on you, you know. 

“With Mary it was different.” John glances over at him, almost nervously. It’s not a topic they bring up very often. It’s been John who’s led the way in that. Sherlock suspects it’s all the guilt he still, clearly carries, and he’s insisted that her death wasn’t Sherlock’s fault, not really, but Sherlock has never been very clear on how much John actually believes that, versus how much of it is just words, or wishful thinking, a necessity for John to be able to justify and accept his burning, yearning desire to be in Sherlock’s orbit. It had never faded. That was blindingly clear, no matter how much he had resisted.

“How?”

John looks away. “There were things I—I couldn’t let go of. She got that. She helped. She just knew how to help.”

Sherlock doesn’t ask what things.

“It was everything for a while. It was the only thing. I—I think it might have kept me alive.”

“And now? With us?”

John sucks at his bottom lip, nibbles at it anxiously, before shaking his head. “I never would have asked. I just—I assumed it wasn’t something you did. I--I mean, we’ve always been just friends.”

“I hope we’re still friends.”

“Yeah. ‘Course. ‘Course we’re friends.”

“John…”

He looks over. “Yeah.”

“I won’t do this if you think that this friendship is at risk. Do you understand.” John doesn’t say anything for a long while. “It’s important to me.”

“What if—what if what I feel for you is something more than that?”

It’s a confession. Well, for John Watson it is, at any rate. Sherlock feels it rush through every cell like fire—hope, desire, adrenaline. “Is it?”

“That okay?” He sounds a little terrified. The courage it must be taking…

Sherlock won’t leave him hanging, not this time. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

He hears John swallow down the anxiety, feels it slowly leech out of him. 

Downstairs the door opens and closes. Mrs. Hudson coming home late. Maybe a date with Chatterjee. Maybe some night out with her girlfriends. The toilet flushes next door.

“Sherlock?”

“Mm.”

“Thanks for—doing that thing you do, figuring it out.”

“I’d wondered if I’d overstepped.”

“No. I can’t ask. Can’t ever seem to ask.”

“It’s a risk. It’s understandable.”

“Yeah. Maybe. I—I think I’ve always wanted things I’m not supposed to.”

Sherlock glances over at him, and smiles. “Yes, you’re very fascinating.”

John huffs out a small laugh and shakes his head. “Bit mad, probably.”

“Oh, most definitely.”

He laughs outright, then, and Sherlock chuckles along with him.

John grows quiet again. “Really though…” He whispers after awhile. “I… There might be something wrong with me, and I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to… I don’t want to put you in a position like I did tonight. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do things, you know. 

“With James it was all over almost before it got started, and with Mary I just didn’t care, because she didn’t, but this…” John rolls onto his side and props himself up on one elbow to look down at Sherlock. “You’re my best friend. I don’t want… I can’t ruin that.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes when I need it, I—I get—strange.”

“Yes. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“No! Listen to me. I mean I—I get not myself, especially once it’s started.”

“I know, John. I think it’s rather natural. That’s why you have me. To make sure you’re alright.”

“And who’s going to make sure you’re alright?”

It’s a fair question, and one Sherlock isn’t sure he has an answer for. He’d not really considered it.

“I trust you.”

John flops back onto his back. “Yeah, well… I don’t trust me.”

Oh.

“Then that may be a problem, yes.”

“Didn’t mean it before, you know. What I said when we were—and you… I don’t hate you.”

“I know.”

“And I’m sorry about how I was on the landing, before.”

“Yes.”

“You need to not let me do that.”

“I did stop you, if you recall.”

John doesn’t say anything.

“I will stop you, John, but you need to learn to self regulate. I’ll strike you if you like it, but I don’t think it’s an adequate form of punishment. You clearly enjoy it too much. If you want real, effective punishment, then you let me choose. I choose when, and where, and how.”

John looks over at him. “Do I get any say in this?”

“Of course. Tell me what are hard no’s for you, and we won’t so much as dip a toe there. And of course, you always reserve the right to stop things, at any time, and for any reason.”

“Don’t have any hard no’s, really.”

“John.”

“What?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, sits up, and props a pillow between his back and the headboard. John cranes his neck to stare up at him.

“Has there ever been anything you did that you didn’t like?”

John shrugs and then looks away with a tense sniff. There is something. There is definitely something, but he’s too embarrassed to talk about it, and that won’t do.

“We won’t do this at all, if you are going to keep things from me. I don’t want to do lasting damage because you can’t or won’t communicate the things you can’t tolerate.”

“There’s nothing. I told you.”

“And you’re lying.”

John’s head snaps back. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like there’s some colour to his cheeks. Sherlock has hit a nerve again.

“Stop telling me what I’m thinking!”

“Ahh, so at least one hard ‘no’. Now, what are the rest?”

John sits up suddenly, swings his feet over the side of the bed. “I’m getting up. You want coffee?”

“It’s only 1:00.”

“Yeah, well…”

“John. Answer my question.”

John jerks his head over his shoulder. “What do you want from me?!”

Sherlock stares at the sudden outburst. Whatever the thing is it’s much larger than he’d previously anticipated, and thus, not something he intends to let go of until he gets an answer.

“Tell me.”

John sucks in a sharp breath, and turns away again, rests his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands, raking his fingers into his hair.

“Some pain is pleasurable, some is not, but it’s necessary. You know that. Tell me. Yank the plaster off, and it’s done. We never have to talk about it again, if you don’t want to, but I need to know. I need to know, John, or I’m not doing this.”

“Stop treating me like a child.” He sounds like a child when he says it, and Sherlock isn’t sure if this is the answer to his question, or just a reaction to his badgering insistence that John tell the truth.

“Do I?”

John shrugs, face still buried in his hands. “Sometimes.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t. I—I’ll endeavour not to. Please, tell me if I do.”

John sniffs, and drops his hands from his face, stares down at them and picks at a hangnail along his thumb. “I don’t like humiliation—okay. Don’t call me names. Don’t—belittle me, or… I already know I’m worthless. Don’t need the reminder.”

The confession seems to suck the oxygen from the room for a moment. It’s the most vulnerable John has ever been, and Sherlock knows he’s guilty, horribly, unforgivably guilty of exactly what John has just described, especially when he’s angry, or hurt, which has seemed like a constant the last few years.

“Yes. Alright. I won’t.”

John sucks in a quavering breath, lets it out slowly. “Good.” He rubs his hands over his thighs and stands up, grabs his trousers and t-shirt off the end of the bed. “I am getting up. I’m not tired.”

He dresses quickly and goes into the loo. The toilet flushes. The tap at the sink turns on and then off again. He moves on to the kitchen. Sherlock gives him the space. He waits until he hears the clattering of pots and pans before getting up, and getting dressed himself. 

He pulls on some pyjamas and a dressing gown, and leans against the wall at the entrance to the kitchen, watching John crack eggs into a bowl, and lay sausage into a heated skillet. His movements are precise, controlled. He’s slipped back into his armour, distracting himself with the monotony of everyday domestics. It’s what John does. Later he’ll probably furiously wash the dishes, while griping at Sherlock to get off his lazy arse and help, all the while not truly expecting him to at all.

Sherlock loves him. He’s known this for years. It’s a love that has saved his life, and nearly killed him, too. It’s not simple, or easy, but love never is. Sherlock’s seen enough of it in his line of work to know that. It’s both cataclysm and boon. Often both at the same time. It can destroy or heal. And he supposes it has already done both for him. But he’s come to rely on its comfort and familiarity, especially in the last year, with John back under their shared roof, his sounds and scents in the flat, his swiftly shifting moods colouring their days much like the weather. Clouds one moment, sunshine the next. It keeps Sherlock alert, stimulated. He craves it. A good thing, he supposes. They fit one another like a hand in a bespoke glove.

John turns toward the fridge and catches sight of him. “You getting up, too, then?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t have the table until I’m done cooking. And you’re eating.”

“Alright.”

John takes the milk from the fridge, and returns to the hob, and Sherlock watches him flipping the sausages, adding a little milk to the eggs, whisking it up, and adding it to the pan. He walks over and stops just behind him, peeks over John’s shoulder and into the pan, and makes John jump.

“Don’t get in my way. I’ll burn the food.”

“You always burn the sausages anyway.”

“Oi!”

Sherlock chuckles, and then wraps his arms around John’s waist. John freezes, and he wonders if he’s crossed a line, if this is allowed. It’s possible John wants to keep all things physical in the bedroom.

John sighs, but sways almost imperceptibly back into the warmth of his embrace, anyway. “What?”

Sherlock stares down at his profile while John makes a show of concentrating very hard on their sizzling breakfast.

“You’re not worthless.” Because he needs him to know.

John doesn’t acknowledge him, and so he simply leans over and presses his lips into John’s hair, and then steps away and heads for the lounge. “Don’t put paprika on the eggs. It’s disgusting.”

John sighs. “It’s not disgusting. It’s gourmet.”

“Wrong.”


	4. Chapter 4

And then nothing happens.

They don’t talk about it in the days afterward. Things go back almost to the way they were before everything had started. 

John wanders around the flat like an exceptionally grumpy ghost, most days. Sherlock gives him space he likely doesn’t need or truly desire. 

They don’t share a bed. Sherlock hadn’t been sure on how to broach that subject, after everything, and so the night after it all happened, John had simply retired to his own room and it was never brought up again.

They don’t touch. 

They barely communicate.

Sherlock knows it’s his fault.

John is expecting him to lead in this, and he’s failing him.

The truth is, Sherlock has no idea what he’s doing. 

He hadn’t lied. There had been an eight month long relationship in university. A mad, fevered time filled with pleasures he never could have guessed at, even with the near obsession adolescence had brought and the hours of research he had poured into the subject. 

Victor had had a taste for the risky, the dangerous—the painful. And Sherlock had studied, and practiced, and given, and given, and given, and in the end it hadn’t been enough. When it ended (quite suddenly and unexpectedly) it had been humiliating, and infuriating, and in weaker moments Sherlock had even considered that it might just have been heartbreaking. 

He doesn’t intend to make the same mistake with John. 

Or hadn’t. 

But now here he is, seemingly frozen with anxiety and inaction, which is the very opposite of how it should be, and he has no idea why. 

Sherlock’s eyes pop open at the sound from the room above him. He stares up at the dark ceiling of his bedroom and listens. He knows the sound, now. The trunk. The trunk John keeps under his bed.

A scrape, the creaking of the floorboards. The sound of John clearing his throat. A clatter. A thud. A muffled exclamation of profanity. And then the drag of the trunk back under the bed, John pulling open the drawer of his nightstand, shutting it again, the groan of his bed, and then silence.

Sherlock holds his breath.

He had gone to bed hours before John. A bit unusual, but he had desperately needed the space, needed to think. It’s late now, and he’s barely moved in ages. It’s likely John assumes he fell asleep hours ago.

It occurs to him, that possibly he should give some indication that he’s awake. It’s only considerate.

_ And when have you ever been considerate? _

Sherlock fumbles beside himself in the dark, opens the drawer to his own nightstand, lets it slam again. He listens, hears John’s old bed frame creak. Sherlock gets up, and pads to the loo, relieves himself, washes his hands, returns to his room.

There. John has had adequate warning.

All is quiet in the room above.

John has either changed his mind, or is now being exceptionally quiet about it.

Ah well…

He sighs and considers indulging himself, but he’s been denying himself lately. It’s a thing he likes to do sometimes, push things as long as he possibly can, a kind of challenge. How long can he go before the need becomes more distraction than he can reasonably justify. He’d gone six months once. The orgasm when he’d finally broke his fast had been more spectacular than any drug-induced high he’d ever experienced, and he’d been hooked.

This stretch hasn’t been near as long, but he has been otherwise occupied the last few months. There hadn’t been the time, or the interest. That has changed now, obviously, but he feels almost guilty indulging with so much still unresolved between him and John, and besides, he likes it, really, the ache of it. There is a delicious sort of agony in the withholding. Sometimes he thinks he almost enjoys the pleasure of denial more than that of the indulgence. Sex can feel hollow, but keeping one’s self on the brink is filled with endless, stimulating anticipation.

A sound floats down from the room above. It’s muffled, but there is an unmistakably needy tone to it. Sherlock props himself up on his elbows and listens intently. John’s bed creaks, creaks again, and then it gets quiet once more.

John knows he’s awake, now. 

Another creak, a soft grunt. There’s no mistaking what John is up to.

Sherlock’s mouth waters and his nipples peak.

This is John communicating—in his own way. A request. Maybe even a plea. Sherlock should go upstairs and take the situation in hand. Yes. He should. 

He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed. Another moan floats down from the room above, and Sherlock sucks in a deep breath. He stares down at his hands. They’re shaking. He balls them up, screws his eyes shut, and growls low in frustration. He had promised himself. He had promised that if life ever offered him this chance again he wouldn’t let the past come in and ruin it. He’s more than that. Above it. This is ludicrous. He’d done just fine the night in the lounge.

Well—he’d been adequate.

He lies back down. 

Above him John is holding nothing back. Sherlock can imagine a myriad of different toys he might have fished out of the now notorious chest. He has to admit that it had been a surprise. He’d always suspected John to be a man of simple tastes, the type to prefer the warm, yielding touch of human flesh to the smooth, cold surface of plastic, or glass, or the odd cling and drag of silicone. But John has always had the ability to surprise him. It’s one of the things he loves about him, one of the things that makes them fit. John is a never ending mystery to be solved. Sherlock is never bored.

John’s moans and whines are getting louder. Sherlock screws his eyes shut and tries not to picture him with aching cock in one hand and a toy in the other, thrusting deep as he writhes, and pants, and tries not to cry out Sherlock’s name.

Sherlock lets out a groan of his own, half frustration, half arousal. He’s rock hard now, and his erection is getting more and more difficult to ignore. If not for the sudden, rather spectacular and paralysing wave of self-loathing, he would have long ago strode upstairs, torn the toy from John’s hand, and taken over himself. As it is…

John lets out a shout and a strangled moan, and then goes quiet.

Sherlock is in agony, and he’s glad. It’s what he deserves.

After a few minutes of silence, there’s a soft thud upstairs, and then a louder one. John slamming the door to his bedroom. There is the pound of his feet on the stairs, and then the light in the loo flicks on, and the water in the sink begins to run.

John is clearly angry. 

Fair.

Sherlock gets up, opens the door to his bedroom, and leans up against the wall outside the loo, waiting.

John is slamming things about, washing, brushing his teeth. 

The door finally swings open a few moments later and John is halfway out the door before he registers Sherlock, slumped in the shadows. He starts.

“Jesus.” 

He’s in a pair of boxers and nothing else. His chest is flushed, and his hair mussed on one side. John’s eyes drag the length of Sherlock’s body, stop just below his belt, linger, before they lift again to meet his gaze.

Sherlock stands up to his full height. “You’re not to do that again without my permission. Is that understood.” He’s pleased with the authority, the low, commanding tone he somehow manages. He sounds the way he imagines he should, even if he’s had to press his hands behind his back to avoid John noticing they’re still shaking.

John’s eyebrows ascend into his fringe. “What?”

“You heard me.”

John huffs out something between disbelief and irritation.

Sherlock only stands in the shadows and stares until a soft flush starts to bloom across John’s chest anew.

“Yeah? And what happens if do?”

Sherlock lets his eyes slide shut, sucks a deep breath in through his nose. Heaven help him… “Then you will find yourself waiting a very, very long time, indeed, before I ever let you come again.”

John blinks. His lips part slightly, and his head cocks to one side. He takes a step closer, clearly trying to read Sherlock’s face in the dim light. “Thought you said you didn’t want sex to ever be a punishment.”

_ He had said that, hadn’t he. Fuck. _

“Yes, well. I’ve changed my mind.” A little less commanding this time. He inwardly berates himself.

John’s lips press together, his nostrils flare, and he steps back, shoulders suddenly slumping. “Listen, if I—if I’ve done something wrong… Not what just happened. I mean before that. I—I can make it up to you.”

Sherlock feels confused.

“Let me make it up to you.” And there isn’t just need, and desire in John’s voice. There’s something else, something soft, and concerned, and…

The corners of Sherlock’s eyes prick.

He swallows it down. “Go to bed, John.”

John frowns. He looks genuinely hurt for the briefest of moments, but then he just jerks his chin, and turns, and does as he’s told.

Sherlock leans against the wall in the dark and breathes deep and slow until the emotion passes. His erection has started to flag. He’s grateful.

This, whatever it is, can’t happen again.

* * *

“The swelling is going down. It’s a good sign. If it keeps on that way, then probably tomorrow we’ll dial back, see how she does.”

“What’s it look like on the scan?”

“No DAI. It’s localised. God knows how. I don’t have to tell you, that’s a good sign. Much better chance for positive long-term outcomes.”

Sherlock sits beside the hospital bed, and gives John the space he seems to desire in times like this. It’s unsettling to see Harry Watson this way. So still, so pale. Sherlock has met her a few times. John had been getting married, and then he wasn’t, and then he wasn’t okay for a very long time. It had seemed advisable to develop a relationship with the one person who had shared a childhood with him, who possibly knew him, and the forces that had shaped him, more than anyone else.

John doesn’t know this, of course. 

Sherlock likes her. She’s both like and wholly unlike John. She’s amusing in a wry sort of way. She’s not boring. But where John buries his trauma deep, and protects himself with anger, Harry is remarkably frank, and diffuses the pain with humour. He wonders if that humour will still be intact when she wakes. He hopes so.

The doctor leaves, and John leans against the window that faces the nursing station and crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s good news.”

Sherlock nods. “The damage is localised, then?”

“Yeah. It’s still wait and see, but they’ll start to bring her out of it tomorrow morning, if she keeps on this way.”

Sherlock stares down at her, and then over at the heart monitor, beeping softly in the corner.

“We should probably go.” John pushes away from the wall.

Sherlock doesn’t ask why. They have nothing on. 

“Yes. Home or somewhere to eat, first?”

John sighs, and looks anywhere but at his sister. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s eat. Bit hungry.”

“Alright.”

* * *

Sherlock takes them to Angelo’s. The restaurant closes for an hour or two between lunch and supper, to prep, but that doesn’t apply to Sherlock. He and John sit in a quiet booth at the very back of the empty restaurant, and Sherlock watches John pick at his Cacio e Pepe, swirling bits of it around his plate and only very occasionally forcing a forkful into his mouth.

Sherlock burns for him.

When John finishes half his plate, they wordlessly agree to leave. They walk back to the flat. It’s a warm afternoon for early May. The street is a bustle. John takes his coat off and drapes it over his arm. He’s walking just a little ahead of Sherlock, and he rolls his shoulders, stretches his arms forward, pulling his shirt taut against the muscles of his back. He’s still thin, and the majority of his shirts are overlarge, hanging from his shoulders loosely, normally disguising his frame. The momentary display feels calculated. An invitation?

Sherlock has the sudden, overwhelming urge to tear it off. 

He’s tired. He’s tired of whatever this is that’s gripped him the last couple of weeks. This isn’t him. It isn’t what he wants. It certainly isn’t what John wants. It’s a mystery, a horrible, humiliating, frustrating mystery, and he refuses to be bested by it!

The ground floor is cool, and dim, and quiet. Mrs. Hudson had gone away, just that morning, for two weeks to be with her sister in Surrey. Sherlock is grateful for it now. He’s made a decision.

John heads for the stairs, but before he reaches them, Sherlock reaches out, takes his arm, and backs him up against the wall. He can see the surprise in John’s eyes. A crooked smile teases at one corner of his mouth. He drops his coat to the floor.

“What’s this, then?”

The truth is, Sherlock doesn’t know what it is. It’s a risk, it’s sheer instinct, it’s wild hope, and complete stupidity. “You didn’t eat your lunch, John?”

“Ate some.” His chins tilts upward, a little cocky. “Didn’t hear you objecting.”

“You must be hungry.”

He sees John catch his meaning. His eyes darken. “A bit. Maybe.”

“You should eat.”

“Should? That an order?” John’s fingers have inched under Sherlock’s jacket and found the sides of his shirt. He’s balled the fabric in his fists like he’s holding on for dear life, holding on and hoping.

“Yes.”

John’s pupils blow wide. “Oh thank Christ.” He pushes away from the wall, flips them around so Sherlock is the one with his back against it, and starts to fumble with Sherlock’s belt. 

Sherlock’s head goes light, and he lets it fall back against the wall with a soft thud as John sinks to his knees in front of him. Now that John’s down there, he seems to hesitate. He has Sherlock’s belt and trousers undone, He has his hand resting on Sherlock’s hips, surprisingly gentle, cradling more than gripping. 

Sherlock looks down. John is staring at the gap in Sherlock’s trousers, at the growing bulge there. His tongue slides over his bottom lip and disappears again. His brow furrows. 

Sherlock reaches down and lays a hand on his head. “You don’t have to.”

“Want to. Just give me a minute.”

Sherlock wants him, wants it to be right ( _ wants so badly to be wanted too _ ).

John’s hands stir at his hips, he slides Sherlock’s trousers down around his ankles, strokes his hands once down the side of Sherlock’s thighs, and up again, and Sherlock just watches, and wants, and aches with the waiting.

John is sitting back on his heels. He shifts his weight a little, his breath catching. When he finally leans forward, Sherlock shivers at the sensation of John’s breath on the inside of his thigh, feels his body respond, twitch, reaching for the heat of John’s mouth even through the thin cotton of his pants.

And then John buries his face there, and just breathes, breathes in the scent, the want, the need, and Sherlock nearly comes undone just from that. 

He can’t. 

He absolutely must not. 

John makes the loveliest sound, half strangled groan, half desperate whine, and Sherlock pushes his hips forward on instinct, the sound lighting up his nerve endings like fire, rendering him nothing but unfiltered, autonomic response. His fingers curl against John’s scalp, and he pulls, and John’s mouth drops open, the pressure of his seeking tongue, and heat of his ragged breath causing Sherlock’s vision to go white around the edges.

“John…” Because there is nothing else in this moment, has never been anything else, one breath to the next, since the moment John stepped into his life.

“God…” John’s fingers scramble at the waist of Sherlock’s pants, yank them down, and then there is wet heat, all encompassing pleasure, and the echo of their shared moan of relief rippling through his body.

Sherlock forgets how to breathe.

He forgets everything but John.

John, who is apparently the sort of lover who clearly relishes in the act, not just out of a desire to please, but because he really and truly enjoys it. Sherlock can hardly bear to look at him, the way his eyes lay closed, rapt and worshipful, lashes fanned out over flushed cheeks, his mouth stretched wide around Sherlock’s length, easily taking him in with a soft palate, open throat, and wicked tongue.

His hands slide around the back of Sherlock’s hips, grip his arse, and pull him deeper, and Sherlock gasps, can’t seem to catch his breath. He can feel his legs going to jelly. 

It’s been years. It’s been decades since he’s done this with another person. He’d forgotten. And nothing he remembers doing with Victor had ever felt like this.

John’s tongue glides over the underside of his cock, somehow, even with Sherlock nudging the back of his throat. Sherlock’s hips buck in surprise and he feels himself slip deep, hears John choke for a moment. He goes to pull away, but John sucks in a deep breath through his nose, and holds Sherlock where he is.

Sherlock looks down. 

John is gazing up at him, almost pleadingly, and so Sherlock rocks forward slowly, a test, until John’s eyes slide shut again. Rapture.

Sherlock gives in.

All he can do is trust that John will show him if it’s too much, because he’s been reduced to nothing but sensation, a hostage of his own transport as he braces his back against the wall, clings on to John’s shoulders and plunges into the wet, tight heat of John’s mouth, over and over, riding the wave of pleasure higher and higher until every cell is alight, until the blood singing through his veins feels like fire, and his brain whites out, bliss, nothing but static. When John brings his hand up to join his mouth, Sherlock knows he’s finished.

John’s grip is firm, and he moves his hand in tandem with his mouth, It means Sherlock isn’t plunging as deeply into his throat, but the added sensation of John’s hand, small, and slick, stroking in long, languorous pulls causes the pleasure to build even quicker. Sherlock feels it crest, suddenly, almost taking him by surprise. He scrapes his fingers over John’s scalp in warning, attempts weakly to pull out, but John only takes him deeper, moans around him, and when Sherlock’s balls draw up, and he finally comes hard, John swallows it all down eagerly, makes small sounds of pleasure that keep Sherlock coming longer than he thinks should be possible.

His legs give out, and he slides down the wall, slides out of John’s mouth, and lands with a soft bump on the floor. John is still on his knees, lips pink and wet, eyelids heavy, hand palming himself desperately through his trousers.

He looks drunk and desperate. 

It’s enough to spur Sherlock back into action, even though he feels ridiculously drunk himself, clumsy in the post-coital haze, still hobbled at the ankles by his own pants and trousers. He somehow manages to push away from the wall, reach John, and then they are on the floor, and Sherlock’s hand is finding its way inside John’s trousers, and John is thrusting frantically into the tight ring of his hand, clinging to Sherlock like he’s the only thing keeping him afloat, and then coming with a shout and a whimper over Sherlock’s hand, and wrist, and belly (and rather unfortunately, Mrs. Hudson’s foyer carpet).

He shivers and goes still in Sherlock’s arms.

Sherlock slowly begins to register the world around them, again. The street noises just outside, the fact that he forgot to lock the door when they came in. Someone could walk in on them like this, a half-clothed tangle, flushed and messy, reeking of sex and barely conscious. He shivers and draws John a little closer.

“Christ…” John mumbles against his neck. “Jesus, that was…” He pulls back, rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. 

Sherlock has an overwhelming desire to cover him up, lest someone burst in and get an eyeful of something Sherlock suddenly, and irrationally very much wants to keep for himself. Because John is beautiful. Hair wild and mussed, shirt pulled free from his trousers, and unbuttoned halfway down his chest, cock, limp and satiated, half exposed above the waistband of his pants. Sherlock wants to ferry him away to some secret place, a treasure just for him.

Irrational. Ridiculous. People are not things, and Sherlock has a mental room of sorts, where he keeps all things John. That will have to suffice. He gazes over at John and works very hard to commit every detail to memory.

John’s head lolls to the side, and he smiles lazily when he sees Sherlock looking. “You okay?”

“Mm.”

John’s brow furrows, and he cranes his neck to lift his head. “Wait. Did we lock the door when we came in?”

“No.”

John’s eyes go wide, and then his head drops to the floor with a thud, and he giggles.

Sherlock can’t remember the last time he’d heard him laugh.

“Guess we should…” John props himself up on one elbow, tucks himself away. “Christ I’ve made a mess. You think Mrs. Hudson will notice.”

“Probably.”

John’s eyes snap to his. “What? Really?”

“She misses nothing.” John looks sincerely concerned, and so Sherlock grins, and winks, until he looks at ease again.

Sherlock sits up, and reaches a hand up to John, who is already on his feet, and John hauls him up easily. Sherlock somehow manages to get himself pulled back together. His shirt and trousers are smeared with the evidence of what they’d just shared. He makes a mental note to drop them off at the dry cleaners the next time they go out.

John is looking at him. “Made a mess of you. Sorry.”

Sherlock just shakes his head. But John still looks worried.

“You should feel free to make a mess of me whenever the fancy strikes you.”

Sherlock can’t interpret the look that passes over John’s face. It comes and goes so quickly it’s gone before Sherlock can properly examine it. Possibly it had been the wrong thing to say. And now whatever it was, has just been replaced by something that looks very much like worry.

Sherlock takes a step toward him, but John waves him away.

“I’m fine. It’s—fine.”

“I wanted this,” Sherlock assures him.

“Yeah? Good. That’s good.”

Sherlock feels his heart sink. “Did you?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, ‘course I did.”

John is straightening his clothing, buttoning back up. “You want some tea?”

“You never make tea.”

John frowns. “That a ‘no’, then?”

“No. I—I’ll have tea.”

Sherlock follows John upstairs. They both go to their respective rooms to change, and then Sherlock settles into his chair in the lounge and waits while John makes the tea, brings it to him, sinks into his own chair, and takes up a book. 

Sherlock observes. After several minutes of silence, John sighs loudly and slams his paperback novel onto his lap. “What?”

Sherlock just arches a brow and shakes his head.

“You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing!” John insists.

Sherlock knows what he means, of course. “Are you alright?”

“‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? It was just sex.”

Oh.

“Mm.” Sherlock doesn’t know what to say. He takes up the journal lying on the table beside him, and pretends to read. 

John looks confused for a moment, but then goes back to reading his own book. After a few minutes, he drops the book again. “Listen, that probably came out wrong. I didn’t mean…” John sets the book on the tea table beside his chair. “Yeah, can you look at me, please.”

Sherlock would really rather not, but he sets the journal on his lap, and does, and waits, being sure to telegraph his displeasure over the whole affair.

_ You started it, you idiot. _

“What was that?”

“What was what?

“Downstairs. Just now. What was that?”

Sherlock sighs. “I believe, as you very aptly observed, that it was  _ just sex _ .”

John looks away, down at his lap. “Was it?”

“Apparently.” Sherlock sounds petty and irked, even to his own ears. But he is. He is upset—with John, with the whole situation, but mostly with himself.

John is picking at a loose thread on the arm of his chair. “Maybe we should have… Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

Sherlock sits a little taller in his chair, crosses his legs and stares. “If that’s what you want.”

“I just mean…”

“Yes.”

“No, I just mean that I can’t lose this.” John finally looks up again, meets Sherlock’s gaze. “I can’t lose—us.”

Sherlock feels a flood of relief wash over him.

“This thing—that I need. I don’t have to get that from you. I—I’d rather not if it’s going to mean we can’t be friends anymore.”

“Do you want me?”

John blinks. “Thought that was pretty obvious downstairs.”

“And I want you, so why shouldn’t you get it from me?”

“You want me?” It’s almost a whisper, and impossibly small. Sherlock suddenly realises that he may have stepped very wrong somewhere.

“I thought that was obvious.”

“You said no sex.”

“Yes, well—I didn’t want to complicate things.”

“You said no sex. You said no sex as punishment. Then you said no wanking unless you permitted it. You said…” John gets up, paces into the kitchen, picks up the kettle, and then slams it back down onto the counter, before marching back into the lounge again. He stops just behind his chair, hands gripping the back, white-knuckled. “I don’t know what you want from me!”

Sherlock stares. 

“I…” John’s chest is heaving, brow knit, face pale. Sherlock is worried that he might be inching up on a panic attack. It’s happened before when they’ve argued, even though John is very good at hiding it, and slinking off to suffer alone under the guise of angry withdrawal. “I need this to make sense!”

“And just what about any of this doesn’t make sense?” Sherlock feels defensive. 

“All of it! Any of it! How can I be good if I don’t know what you expect?!”

Sherlock sees the moment the words that just came out of his mouth register with John. He instantly realises he’s revealed too much. His face flushes bright red, and his eyes go red-rimmed. He sniffs, and balls a fist up at his side. “I’m going out.”

“Where?”

“Just out!” John heads for the landing, and Sherlock frowns and scrambles to his feet. John is already halfway down the stairs when Sherlock reaches the landing. 

Sherlock follows, watches John’s gait hitch as he reaches the foyer, and heads for the front door. 

“John, stop!”

And he does. Just like that. 

Sherlock can see John’s shoulders rising and falling with his hurried breath.

“You’re right.”

John’s shoulders still.

“I’ve muddled this whole thing. And that’s my fault, not yours.”

Sherlock steps forward and stops just behind him, reaches out and runs his fingers down John’s arm in invitation. “John…”

And when John turns and looks up at him—broken, and terrified, and looking all of twelve years old, Sherlock decides to tell him everything. “Yes, there was someone before, and the arrangement was—similar, but as I said, it went wrong. It ended poorly, very suddenly, and I—I took it rather badly. I didn’t want that to happen with us, and yet, here I am, muddling this too. 

“John, it’s possible… It is possible that I’m not cut out for this, and—if you would like to stop, then we’ll stop.”

John swallows tightly, stares down at the floor, for a moment, and then back up into his eyes. “Don’t want to stop.”

“And I don’t want you to feel—unsafe.”

The words seem to strike John in some strange way. His face changes, he reels back a little before recovering himself. 

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock presses. “I’ve been letting everything that came before you and me colour this, and that’s not… I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

John nods.

Sherlock steps a little closer, and John lets him. They are sharing the same space, the same heat, the same breath. “You’re important—to me. I—I realise I’ve likely not told you enough. A failing I’m determined to rectify now, if you’ll let me. You see, I need this to work out as much as you do, because John—I’m quite lost without you.”

“Yeah?” whispered against Sherlock’s mouth.

“Yes.”

And then Sherlock breeches the last breath of space between them, and cradles John’s face in his hands, and kisses him.

He feels the shock of it pass through John’s body, feels it be replaced with acceptance, and then rest as John yields and melts against him in the soft quiet.

It’s rather chaste compared to everything they had shared moments ago, and just a few feet away, but it feels weighty, important—right. John receives it, accepts it, like he’s been waiting longer than he would ever admit, and Sherlock thinks finally, finally he’s gotten something right.

When he finally pulls back, John follows, sways forward, like maybe he isn’t ready to let it go, not quite yet. 

Sherlock reaches down and takes his hand. “Come back upstairs. We’ll finish our tea.”

John nods, and Sherlock gives his hand a squeeze, and then lets go, and heads back upstairs. 

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock stops and turns, looks down at John gazing up at him out of the gloom.

“You’re not bad at it. Just—maybe stop overthinking it, yeah? You’re better when you just do what comes naturally.”

“I’ve been told that what comes naturally is being an insensitive arsehole.”

John grins crookedly. “Yeah, well, maybe I like you when you’re a bit of a dick.”

Sherlock smiles and then chuckles. “I see. I’ll keep that in mind.”


	5. Chapter 5

When the hospital calls the next day, John insists on going alone. Sherlock doesn’t press the issue. If it is what John wants, then it’s what John shall have. When it all catches up later, which it inevitably will (always does), Sherlock will be there. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s been doing since the day they met. He almost thinks that John has come to rely on it. When he breaks Sherlock fixes it.

Except sometimes Sherlock can’t. 

They’d both learned that the hard way over the last few years.

Still—old habits die hard.

Sherlock hears nothing from John all day, not a single text. When supper time looms, Sherlock decides to order a takeaway, all John’s favourites. And he’s grateful for the foresight, because come seven o’clock he hears the front door open and shut again, and a tread on the stairs, heavy, with a little hitch at the end that lets Sherlock know all he needs to about how things went at the hospital.

When John appears at the door to the lounge he looks exhausted, dark rings under his eyes, and a grey pallor to his skin. 

“Hey.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock keeps his eyes trained on the book in front of him. Important not to look too concerned. John needs the emotional space. John needs Sherlock to at least seem disinterested.

“We have anything in? I’m starving.”

“There’s a takeaway keeping warm in the oven.”

“Oh yeah? Ta.”

Sherlock watches John putter around the kitchen, serving up the food for himself. The limp is more evident now. It has been somewhat more pronounced since the accident. It’s to be expected. Still, Sherlock wonders if he’s in pain, and if so, if everything they’d done on the floor the day before had made it worse.

John settles into his chair with a groan, and tucks into his supper, and Sherlock goes back to pretending to read. 

“She’s responding, which is good. Seems disoriented. Not very talkative. A bit agitated. But her vitals are good, and the swelling seems to be abating. She might have gotten really lucky. Still, it’s going to be a bloody long, hard recovery, and you know Harry…”

“Mmm.”

John takes a few more bites of his supper.

“Apparently you do know Harry.”

Sherlock blinks, sets the book down. “Sorry?”

“She was asking for you. Seemed a bit odd.”

Sherlock stares at John who is picking at his food, and not putting any of it in his mouth.

“Are you asking me if I’ve met your sister?”

John looks up, and Sherlock can’t decide if he looks angry or worried. “Well?”

“Yes. A few times.”

John’s chopsticks clatter on the side of his plate. “And were you going to tell me this, or…?”

“Or?”

John sniffs and stares back down at his plate. “So… You two—making plans, or…?”

“Plans?”

“I’m asking why you’ve been seeing my sister without telling me!” John snaps.

“I’ve met her a total of four times. The first time when we were planning your wedding. The other three in the months you weren’t talking to me. Two of those visits I initiated. The last one she did.”

John huffs bitterly. “So, you’re what? Fucking?”

Sherlock just stares. 

“John, just because you had sex with your sister’s wife, it doesn’t naturally follow that she will seek to retaliate by doing the same with your best friend. It’s not her nature.”

John’s head snaps up, and Sherlock waves off the look of mortified betrayal in his eyes.

“No, no, she didn’t tell me. It’s been plain as day since the day you and I met. I deduced it. It’s as simple as that.”

The shock in John’s eyes turns to rage. “Fuck you.” It’s deadly calm, and Sherlock knows what comes next if it isn’t nipped in the bud, and truth be told he’s as tired as John, and not in the mood to diffuse John’s anger, or fend off an outburst. He decides to try an approach he never has before.

“No, John. Fuck you.”

He sees it hit John like a slap in the face, and the shock of it seems to take a little of the energy out of his rapidly escalating anger.

“I’m bone weary of this conversation, so let me set you right on a few points, once and for all.”

A muscle in John’s jaw twitches, and he moves to get to his feet.

“Sit down!” Sherlock orders.

Miraculously, John does. He plops back down like he’s been shoved, mouth parted, cheeks pink. He folds his hands in his lap.

“No. Your sister and I are not involved, have never been involved, will never be involved. I initiated a meeting when planning your wedding. I wanted to see if she intended to accept the invitation, as I felt it best to be prepared either way. She was frank on why not.” 

John opens his mouth like he wants to ask ‘why not’, but Sherlock shoots him a warning glance, and he holds his peace.

“I admired her for that. Later, when you had stopped talking to me, I sought her out for insight. She grew up with you, I assumed that meant she may have knowledge I did not. She was sympathetic, but couldn’t offer many solutions. She saw the Culverton Smith case on the news. She came to the hospital to see me. We have only texted occasionally, since. We are acquaintances, possibly friends, that’s all, John.

“And while we’re on the subject, if I were ever to pursue romantic or sexual interests outside this arrangement, which I cannot fathom, I can assure you that my partner of choice would not be a woman. So, if you could stop making wild and wholly unfounded assumptions, that would be—good.”

John is just staring.

Sherlock supposes that it’s better than the rage that had been simmering just under the surface, moments before. 

“Wait. So you’re gay?”

Sherlock closes his eyes, and breathes in slowly, before opening them again. “I had thought that after what I told you about my experiences at school, and after what we shared yesterday, you would have put two-and two together. Do keep up.”

John frowns. “No. No. Just because… That doesn’t necessarily mean…. There was Janine. Irene Adler.”

“Janine was for a case. Nothing happened.”

“But the stuff in the newspapers?”

“She made it up. A bit of revenge, I suppose. Can’t really blame her.”

Sherlock can’t decide if John looks relieved, confused or disappointed.

John stares down at his hands, and starts to pick at a hangnail on the side of his thumb. “Well, and—what about Irene?”

Sherlock sighs heavily. “What about her?”

“I mean, you’ve never… You’ve never even thought about it?”

“I’ve told you, we chat, that’s all. About you, mostly.”

John’s head snaps up. “About me?”

Sherlock’s revealed a bit more than he’d planned. “Yes. She texts me every few months to ask if…”

John’s eyes darken again. “To ask what?”

Sherlock sucks in a deep breath. “To ask if we’ve, as she so delicately puts it, ‘pulled our heads out of our own arses, and put them somewhere in the vicinity of one another’s’”.

John’s face does something strange. Sherlock isn’t sure if it’s a grin or a grimace. And then, suddenly, he’s laughing, really, properly laughing for the first time in months, and Sherlock can’t help but laugh a little too. When John finally manages to pull himself together, he shakes his head, and takes a hearty bite of his supper. “So all this time, she’s been texting you to see if we’re fucking?”

“Mmm. I rarely answer, but she is persistent.”

John just shakes his head and pops a dumpling in his mouth. “I don’t get it. Why does she care?”

“I don’t know. I try not to think about it.”

“Mmm. Probably a wise decision, that.” John agrees around a mouthful of food. His mood is completely changed, and Sherlock suddenly realises that perhaps this was a conversation they should have had years ago, back when the Adler case had first ended. “Maybe she just gets off on it; the thought of two blokes fucking.”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything. John has long projected his desires onto Irene Adler, something worth considering, but not tonight.

“John…”

“Mm?” John looks up and gives him a small, sincere if weary smile.

“I would like you to share my bed from now on.”

Sherlock searches John’s face, every nuance and tell to see how this announcement has landed. John looks relieved, he thinks.

“Oh. Yeah? Well, I… Yeah, that’s alright.”

“Good.”

“When you’ve finished eating, I want you to get up, go take a shower, and then get undressed, get into bed, and wait for me.”

He sees the surprise, but it’s quickly replaced with something altogether different. “Oh yeah?” John’s voice is rough around the edges, his pupils blown wide.

“Yes.”

John moves to set his plate down.

“No. Finish your food. You’ve likely not eaten all day, and you’re going to need the energy.”

“Right.” John begins to eat again, a little more quickly than before. His movements are precise, measured. There is a tension there. Anticipation. Arousal. The eagerness to move on from one order to the next. Sherlock can’t help but feel the tingle of anticipation himself. 

John wants this. John needs this, too, which is what makes everything he does now important.

He’d ordered the shower to give himself some time and space to think, to consider how best to diffuse John’s anxieties and concern over his sister enough for him to let them go for a few hours, get a decent night’s sleep. He knows what he would choose if it were him, but he is not John, and it is likely that John might not appreciate the same things he would.

Across from him, John sets his plate down and gets to his feet. “I’ll just…” He jerks his chin in the direction of the loo, and Sherlock nods his head in acknowledgement.

“Use my shampoo,” he calls after him.

John turns back and grins, a slightly filthy thing that sends a shiver down Sherlock’s spine. “Yeah? Okay.” And then he disappears down the hall, and Sherlock hears the click of the door, and the sound of the water turning on, and he feels like he can breathe again.

He scowls down at the front of his trousers. Half hard already. It’s slightly embarrassing, how much he wants this. He’d sworn he’d stay a step above base desire in this arrangement. John needs him to keep a clear head. It wouldn’t do to topple headlong into the chemical stew of lust, let it cloud his judgement completely. He’d come dangerously close to that that day before in the hall.

He hears the scrape of the shower curtain against the rod as John steps in, and he forces himself not to picture it in his mind’s eye. Every cell of his body is drawing him down the hall to the bath. To strip naked, to pull back the curtain, step beneath the steaming spray and push John back against the cold tile. Would John welcome it? Would the element of surprise work in his favour? 

Sherlock squirms a little in his chair. His trousers are becoming uncomfortably snug. If he doesn’t do something he will be too distracted to focus on John as he should, and that will never do. He gets to his feet, starts stripping out of his shirt before he’s even through the kitchen. He tries not to think about it, just to act. John can send him off again, if the surprise isn’t to his liking, but John seems to like the unpredictable, the slightly dangerous, being kept on his toes.

He’s quiet as he enters the loo, strips out of his trousers and pants, and when he pulls back the shower curtain, John does jump in surprise. He’s soaking wet, skin pink from the hot water coursing over his body. Sherlock is hit with a wall of scent. His own shampoo, the salt of John’s skin, the tang of his bar soap. He steps into the shower, and John takes a step back, and then Sherlock crowds him up against the cold tile, and John hisses as the icy porcelain makes contact with his warm skin, gasps as Sherlock’s cock, hard and leaking, slides over his abdomen. 

His head knocks back against the tile. “Christ.”

Sherlock buries his face in the wet hair at John’s temple and mouths the shell of his ear, groans as John’s hands scramble up and over the wet skin of his back, down over the rise of his arse, and then grip hard, squeeze, pull Sherlock in closer. Sherlock steps in presses his whole weight against him, grinds against John’s slick belly, and then nearly comes when John growls a string of profanity under his breath, and squeezes Sherlock’s arse harder. His fingers slip down Sherlock crack, deeper. Sherlock stops breathing.

He reaches down and grabs the wrist of John’s other arm, guides his hand between their bodies, down, hopes he understands. And of course he does. John is remarkably clever, after all, especially when it comes to the important things.

John clearly knows what he’s doing as he wraps his hand around Sherlock’s straining cock with a firm hand and a starts to pull, in steady, even strokes. 

Sherlock gives over to it. He’s not going to last long. He’s not going to try.

“You been thinking about this all day? Mmm?” John sounds far more composed than Sherlock. His attention a razor’s edge of focus. His movements studied and sure. “You been thinking about what we did yesterday in the hall, my mouth around your cock?”

Sherlock thrusts into the ring of John’s fist by way of answer. He’s not sure he trusts his voice at the moment.

Just hums. “Yeah? Cause I’ve been thinking about it, thinking about what you tasted like when you came, thinking about how I want to feel you come again, come all over me.”

John picks up the speed of his strokes, slides the fingers of his other hand deeper still, until they are teasing at the entrance to Sherlock’s body. Sherlock feels himself yield to John’s fingers, and the ease with which he takes him in surprises them both.

“Jesus. Christ. Can I?”

“Do it!” Sherlock barks, and doesn’t even recognise his own voice. This is something he’s never done before. Victor had always wanted him to be the one who…

John slips his fingers out, and brings them up to his mouth. Makes a bit of a show of slicking them up, and then plunges back down again, in again, and slides deeper. Sherlock’s legs suddenly turn to jelly. The burn, the stretch, the sensation of John pushing deeper, slowly, slowly, so achingly slow. John’s breath is ragged, and Sherlock can feel him pressed hard and twitching against Sherlock’s thigh.

When John has pressed in as far as his short fingers will allow, he stops, pants against Sherlock’s neck. He’s clearly forgotten what he was doing with Sherlock’s cock. He’s gone completely still. “Wanna move.”

Sherlock nods against John’s hair, and John makes a small sound, deep and needy, and then slides out, and in again, experimentally. The drag of it is painful, not near enough lubrication. He feels John register it, shivers at the growl of frustration he makes.

“Fuck.”

“More lubrication.”

“Yeah.”

“The bedroom?”

“Yeah.”

There is a scramble of wet limbs, John fumbling to turn off the water, Sherlock nearly tripping on his way out of the tub, and then they are both stumbling into the bedroom, naked, and dripping, and desperate. John yanks the top drawer of the bedside table so hard, it ends up on the floor, but he finds the lube, and then Sherlock is crowding him up against the flocked wallpaper, right there beside the bed, and John fingers, slick and warm, are finding their way back where they belong, and this time, this time it’s perfect.

“God, you’re…”

John’s fingers slide a little deeper, curl slightly, and then Sherlock’s hips are jerking forward at the burst of something hot, and tight, and earth-shatteringly bright. He lets out a shout of surprise, and feels himself leak over John’s belly. And he’s not coming, not really, but…

“Fuck, you’re so… You… You want more?”

Sherlock whines into John’s hair, and wonders for a moment, how he, of all people, could be capable of making such a sound.

“Yeah? Yeah, of course you do.”

And John finds the spot again, and just stays there, teasing, and working, and Sherlock loses all sense of time, or space, or anything beside the aching tension, the wave, after endless wave of pleasure that makes him aware of nothing but John’s fingers inside of him, and John’s breath on his neck, and John’s hips rolling against his thigh. John is saying things, likely filthy things, but Sherlock is hardly registering it at all. 

“Can I? Christ Sherlock. Can I?”

And Sherlock somehow completely missed what John is asking, but he doesn’t care, because he’s aching for anything, everything, so hungry, starving. “Yes.”

And then John is pulling out, and pushing Sherlock back, scrambling about on the floor for the discarded lube, and then pulling him back in, plunging back in, three fingers this time, and the burn is exquisite, the slight, bright twinge of pain so delicious Sherlock moans loud, feels himself twitch and pulse around John’s fingers, and pull him deeper, as deep as his fingers will go, and somehow it still isn’t deep enough.

“Move!” Sherlock orders, and John does, picks a rhythm that has Sherlock squirming, and thrusting, and begging in no time, and Sherlock forces himself to focus, to look down at John and take in everything, the way his eyes look bright, and focussed, and wholly free of care, the way the slump in his shoulders has straightened, the strength in his grip, on Sherlock’s hip. He glances up and catches Sherlock looking, and grins.

“Good?”

Sherlock nods, arches his back, pushes back into John’s eager fingers, and lets his eyes slide shut.

“Should have told me.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck, you’re…”

“Yes. Yes…” Sherlock can feel it building, the tight hot curl in his belly, the frenzied, building ache about to burst into something explosive. But he doesn’t want it yet. Not yet. “Bed!” He somehow manages.

John’s brows lift, but he doesn’t have to be asked twice. He goes, lies on his back, throws his hands over his head, chest heaving and eyes bright, and Sherlock can barely make his legs work, but somehow manages to find the lube, and make it to the bed, to crawl on top of him, sit back on his thighs and reach for John’s cock. He’d dispensed rather more lube than probably necessary in his haste, but John doesn’t seem to mind the slick squelch as he thrusts up into Sherlock’s fist.

“Oh fuck. Yeah. Sherlock, please.”

John has waited long enough. They both have.

John’s hand comes to Sherlock’s hip, remarkably gentle now, resting there, guiding him, as Sherlock sinks down, lets John fill him up. It’s so much better than anything he could have imagined, and John’s fingers could never have prepared him for this, for the stretch, and the burn, and how deeply John fills him by the time Sherlock is fully seated in his lap. John’s eyes have gone wide, his mouth parted in panting disbelief at the sensation. It’s a revelation for them both, Sherlock thinks.

“Don’t move.” He orders. And John lies very still, tries to even slow his breathing.

“You okay?” He finally whispers after a moment or two of stillness.

Sherlock nods. “Just don’t move.”

And John doesn’t obey him this time, not exactly, but it’s alright, because his hips stay still, while his hands slide down Sherlock’s thighs, and back up again, slow, soothing strokes, and it helps, helps Sherlock relax enough to take John more easily. He knows John must feel it, the moment his body lets go.

“Better?”

Sherlock nods. 

John’s hands slide up his thighs again, but this time they stop, his thumbs tracing half moons on the insides of Sherlock’s thighs, his knuckles grazing the velvet hard underside of Sherlock’s erection. And Sherlock’s body responds, tries to pull John deeper. They moan in unison.

John wraps his hand around Sherlock and strokes, and Sherlock’s eyes fall shut, head falls back. His body moves, almost of its own volition, hips rolling forward. John shifts inside of him, and moans, and thrusts up, seeking more sensation, and then they are moving together in perfect synchrony, with Sherlock in the lead, finding their rhythm, letting John glide in and out, teasing sensation from places and in ways Sherlock had hitherto only imagined, as John’s hand continues to work, drawing them closer, and closer, together, working in perfect harmony—just like the old days, Sherlock thinks, like in the beginning when they could almost read one another’s minds, and everything had seemed right and easy.

“Oh Christ. I—I’m gonna…” John’s hand speeds up, flying over Sherlock’s cock as he draws closer to his own orgasm. It’s clear he wants them to come together, or as close to as they can manage. Sherlock lets go then, lets it build to the breaking point, crest and crash over him. He moans in relief when it finally claims him, when he spasms around John’s body, spills onto his hand and belly, and then feels John fill him with a shout and a drawn out moan, hot pulse after pulse, and it vaguely crosses his mind that they’ve both been very careless indeed, in not insisting on protection, but his head is too fuzzy, and his muscles too weak to consider it any more. He collapses against John’s chest, lets him slide out, and pulls him, hot, and sweaty, and sated into his arms.

John lies very still. He doesn’t seem in any hurry to pull away, clean up, and move on with his evening, as he had the day before. Sherlock holds him a little tighter, and hopes he hasn’t just made a horrible mistake. He really hadn’t meant for it to go so far. He’d hoped for a quick hand job in the shower, something to take the edge off, so he could take John back to the bedroom, tie him to the headboard, and give him what he desired. Instead he’d gone to pieces. They both had.

John mumbles something against Sherlock’s neck that he doesn’t quite catch.

“Mm?”

“Said I made a mess of you, probably.”

Sherlock smiles. “A bit.”

John huffs against his heated skin, and then goes quiet again.

He is a mess, and he should probably get up and do something about it, change the sheets too, but John is a steady weight in his arms, and is giving no indication of wanting to move, so Sherlock stays where he is, and buries his nose in John’s hair, and drifts. He must sleep a little, because the light in the room has changed when a sound against his chest makes his eyes snap open with a small surge of adrenaline. 

John.

John crying.

He stirs a little, to let John know he is awake, and John sniffs, and grows quiet, but doesn’t pull away. His shoulders still shake.

Sherlock stays with him. 

John permits this now, on occasion. He permits Sherlock’s closeness, his comfort, when things get too big to hold up and in.

Eventually it passes.

Sherlock feels sticky, and cold, and a little sore. He traces a line down John’s spine. “I’ll run a bath. We can share it, if you like.”

John sniffs again, and pulls back to look up at him, eyes red-rimmed. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

John nods, and seems satisfied. His fingers stir at Sherlock’s waist. His breath tickles the sparse hair on Sherlock’s chest. “Not sure I can do it.”

Sherlock tries not to panic. “Do what?”

“If she needs care. If she doesn’t recover.”

Sherlock breathes freely again.

“Perhaps it’s best to cross that bridge if you come to it?”

“I’m a doctor. It’s what I’m supposed to do, and she’s my own sister, for Christ’s sake, I should… I should be able to…”

“You’ll do all you can when the situation requires it. You always do.”

John huffs bitterly. “You of all people should know that’s not true.”

“John, you’re too hard on yourself. You always have been.”

And John does pull away at that, rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “Not hard enough, you mean. Not about the things that matter.” He scowls, and cranes his neck, to stare down the length of his body. “Christ we are a mess.”

Sherlock chuckles. “As I said. Bath, I think.”

“Yeah.”

Sherlock sits up and tries not to think about the discomfort.

“Sherlock?”

He glances over his shoulder. John has propped himself up on his elbows. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“What is this, we’re doing?”

Sherlock thinks, because it’s a fair question, an important one. “I like to think that maybe it is the natural progression of what we’ve always done, always been.” He breathes deep. “Do you regret it?”

John’s eyes are soft. He shakes his head.

“Good. Neither do I. Now come. Let’s bathe.”


End file.
